ness as dutifulness in her solicitude for his welfare. One day a Norwegian captain, coasting from Sendai to the northern island of Yezo, put into harbour for a day, and proposed to the landlord that the girl should take passage with him for a couple of months in return for fifty yen (about £5), but she displayed strong repugnance to this not ungenerous proposition. On another occasion O Maru, having innocently introduced a handsome brunette, her bosom friend, to Monsieur René, who did not disguise his pleasure at the presentation, was discovered by him at the foot of his bed convulsed by tearful jealousy. At first she would only give negative replies to his questions. "Nakimasen" ("I'm not crying"), and "Shirimasen" ("I don't know why I'm crying"), she said. But at last she gave the reason. "Because you are now tired of O Maru, and will honourably take notice of O Kiku." I must suppose that he found a way of reassuring her, as the next day they were warmer friends than ever; and it became plain to me that a dictionary, plainly bound but a devoted pocket-companion, had been providentially deposited for M. Beauregard at the Asano-ya, Ishinomaki. Indeed, the book was more anxious to be bought than the buyer to acquire it, for as soon as the date of our return to Tōkyō was given out O Maru begged her foreign lover to take her with him, and extracted a promise that, if her family made no objection, as soon as he had made suitable arrangements he would send for her to continue the studies which had begun so pleasantly on the banks of the Kitakamigawa.
